Witch's Bell Book One

silently been walking past – her pink polo shirt, and Christmas red and green slacks making her stick out like a nude in a nunnery – a couple had burst out from the restaurant just behind her. They proceeded to take up either side of Ebony, as they all waited for the lights to change, and continue their incredibly loud domestic tiff.
    'Well what do you want?!' the woman in tights and a puffy chiffon top screamed at the man. 'You don't know, do you?'
    The man, who was wearing a fairly well-cut suit, but whose breath smelt like cheap and nasty alcohol, just scoffed very loudly – practically hacking up all over Ebony in his obvious attempt to show just how disdainful he was of Miss Chiffon right now. 'Sorry?' he snapped, hand patting at his chest like a one-armed gorilla asserting dominance. 'I don't know what I want? Are you for real?'
    Ebony just stood there, giving a quiet little sniff, and concentrating very hard on the set of traffic lights – hoping that they'd just hurry up and change.
    'Of course I'm for real, you idiot,' the woman spat back, her large hoop-earrings dangling around her neck like insects around the light.
    Which was a good point, Ebony thought, face becoming stiffer with her friendly, but not interested expression – most people are real. But that didn't answer why these people having a useless lovers-tiff on either side of her, like some kind of angry romantic hamburger – with Ebony as the pickle in the middle that no one even wanted.
    'You're not hearing me,' the man said, louder than a fog horn. If he honestly thought Miss Chiffon couldn't hear him, then Miss Chiffon must have complete and total hearing loss – because Ebony fancied that everyone for blocks around would be able to pick up his drunken slurs. 'You don't know what you want,' he repeated.
    The woman just rolled her eyes, crossing her arms with such a labored expression that it half seemed as if she was dragging shut giant cast-iron gates. 'Mark, you've never known what you want.'
    And with that, the lights had changed, and Ebony had shot forward like a horse at the races. Must beat them, her hind brain thought with a primal urgency. She didn't want to be dragged into this hilariously uncomfortable fight.
    So Ebony had powered on, thinking the worst was behind her, when she'd finally managed to get to the police department. But before she'd even been able to get through the doors, she'd been dragged into another pointless dispute that had nothing to do with her.
    A homeless woman, with a wild crop of perennially unkempt hair, rushed up to Ebony and put a hand on her sleeve.
    But before Ebony could look around and ask what she wanted, a uniformed officer marched up, expression as pained as a man that has just lost his house, his dog, and his leg.
    'Look,' he shook his head, 'you need to start behaving.'
    'Behaving!' the woman snapped around with a wide-eyed gaze that looked like the tracking lock of a homing missile. 'Don't you tell me how to act – I haven't broken the law!'
    The officer took off his hat, scratching his head with a quick, tired move. 'Yet. But you've got to calm down. If you want this case looked into, you've got to cooperate,' the man sighed heavily, 'ma'am,' he added as a hasty afterthought.
    'They stole my stuff!' the woman's wild hair matched each wild dip and turn of her head, as she emphasized her points with the body language of a snake.
    'I know, and we're looking into it, we really are. But the way you are behaving now, you have to ask yourself – what do you want?' the man took a peculiar pause. 'Is this what you want? Do you want to be arrested for being a public nuisance, or harassing a police officer? Or do you want us to do our best, and contact you when we know anything? It's your choice.'
    Somehow, inexplicably, the woman's hand had remained on Ebony's arm throughout the entire conversation – as if Ebony was a still, silent, and steady rock that could easily be used as an anchor. And even though Ebony couldn't have helped but hear their entire talk, maybe being tied to the conversation by the woman's gnarled hand served to make her pay even more attention than what she would ordinarily have.
    What did the woman want? That was a peculiar way to put it. Surely it would have just been better to directly point out that she was walking the fine line between public tanty and public nuisance. Why ask her what she wanted?
    The situation had quickly resolved itself or, rather, Ebony had